


Threads from the Confused Distaff of Memory

by Aishuu



Category: Darkangel Trilogy - Meredith Ann Pierce
Genre: Angst, Gen, Prequel, Triumph takes many forms, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 11:28:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8977840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aishuu/pseuds/Aishuu
Summary: Women born of Isternes are slaves to no man. Eryka may be locked in a tower, but she will not wait helplessly for someone else to save her.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).



> Thanks to yhlee and TBA for the beta-help!

The woman sits in a tower, her baby less than a palm’s length from her side. She looks down at the little girl, wondering if she is making the right choice.

Eryka does not deserve to be imprisoned, but experience has taught her there is little justice in the world. She is still in shock about her beloved suzerain’s death, and the rapid usurpation of her daughter’s rights to the throne of Pirs. 

The Nameless Man comes to her every day, offering to make her his bride and queen with sweetly poisonous promises. He offers to take her children as his own, restoring their birthrights as children of the suzerain, but she knows she cannot trust his word.

She refuses, despite how he rages at her for her stupidity.

No matter how she longs to be free of this place, she is never tempted to believe his words. If she marries her husband’s brother, she will only exchange one cage for another. The idea of letting a man who sold his name lay hands on her body makes her skin crawl. The idea of his spawn growing within her belly makes her want to throw up.

The only servant left to her is a maid who provides food and takes out the chamber pot, but Eryka has only herself to rely on for everything else. Most ladies of any estate have at least one nursemaid and milkmother to take over the actual work of childrearing, but she is not permitted that luxury. She is the one who attends to her daughter, making sure all her needs are met.

She finds she enjoys it. Her breasts are heavy with milk, and she has felt no greater love than the times she holds her daughter to nurse.

She tries not to regret Roshka too much. She was only able to cling to one of her children when the guards came, and she chose her daughter. She has no illusions about her captor; if she keeps spurning him, he might try to legitimize his claim to the throne a different way. He would definitely marry his own niece.

Eryka does not dare let her daughter out of her sight, fearing what will become of her. Thankfully Erryl is a naturally quiet child, blessed with a peaceful temperament and a willingness to sleep for decent periods of time. Eryka might have worried that her daughter was slow, but as her daughter’s eyes changed to the green of her own, she could see the child’s eyes begin to focus and observe her surroundings.

“Hush, little one,” she speak-sings to her child. She may not have her instruments, but she still has her voice. Her child will know music. It is the one pure thing left in this prison, and Erryl will understand that music carries the very soul of the world.

With only a babe for company, Eryka would be lonely, if not for the spirits that visit her during nightshade. She is not sure if they are real or the product of her incipient madness, but the visits give her strength to continue.

They arrive via the window, following a thin golden thread down from the sky. They come after her maid has left for the night, and Eryka wonders if she only dreams their company. They’re always so joyous that being around them lifts her soul from the horror of her life.

A daymonth since her imprisonment began, they come to her in a strange mood. There are thirteen of them dressed in beautiful, golden gowns more splendid anything Eryka ever saw in her travels. Usually they chatter about dancing and what Eryka should do to brighten up the place. Tonight they are not smiling, and Eryka senses that something is about to change. Tonight, they are serious.

“Have you been eating?” the first one asks. 

“You look so thin,” the second one states.

“She’s been eating hungerspice,” a third says, shaking her head with distress.

Eryka gasps. She should have expected her husband’s brother to sink to such a nefarious low, but it hadn’t occurred to her. 

“There is hungerspice in your food,” the first repeats before looking around her companions, who all nod solemnly. Seeing them without laughter in their faces makes her feel strange, like the world is shifting under her feet and she cannot remain standing much longer.

“It’s the only food I have,” she murmurs, half to herself since she’s not convinced the maidens aren’t a hallucination borne out of her own desperation.

“It’s not healthy for you.”

“It can damage the soul.”

“You must find another way,” the maidens say in unison.

Eryka moves over to a polished silver-glass to examine her reflection. She knows of hungerspice, and understands the damage it can do. One addicted to hungerspice will starve rather than eat any other food, and the hungerspice dulls the mind and make a victim pliable. 

It is the perfect scheme; all the Namelesss One needs is her consent to take him as her husband. If she dies after the wedding, then he will have an unchallenged claim to Pirs. And without her, her children…

The logic falls into place, and Eryka turns back to the maidens, who are hovering over her daughter’s cradle, cooing lovingly to the babe.

“Hello, little Erryl,” they are singing in harmony, and the tallest reaches forth to chuck her under the chin affectionately. They say her daughter’s name strangely, adding an extra syllable in a Terrain lilt. 

“How long?” Eryka wonders. Her face does not have any hollows or gauntness, but her gown fits more loosely over her chest. If she thought about it at all, she would have assumed she was losing the weight she gained during her pregnancy.

One of them, the one with the strongest personality and the one Eryka has mentally named the leader for her tendency to speak first, steps forth. “You have eaten hungerspice for less than a sevenday. Have you thought of what you will do?” she asks.

“Do?” Eryka echoes.

“You’ve had time to think of your options, alone in this tower,” the leader says.

“There is no one able to rescue you except for yourself,” chimes in the tallest.

“Now that you know the truth, you must make a decision.”

“What options do I have?” Eryka asks, unable to think of anything. She must eat if she is to nurse Erryl, but if she eats, she will lose the power to resist. If the bars weren’t so thick, she would throw herself out the window to avoid such a bitter fate. Women born of Isternes are slaves to no man. 

“We always have options, although they may not be good ones,” the lead maiden says.

“The hungerspice will make you thin.”

“Thin isn’t always bad.”

“We were thin, once, thin enough to hide in the shadows,” another continues, before she is quickly shushed. 

“That’s not a story that’s happened yet,” the leader chides her, before turning her glowing face back to Eryka. “We sometimes forget, for what does time matter to a star?” 

“Even though our light doesn’t yet shine here, we exist elsewhere,” says one that has never spoken before. “It takes a long time for starlight to travel.”

“And time is not a regular thing, moving in one direction,” the leader of the group says, and the others echo her with agreement. “Your decision depends on what will happen in the future.”

“Time loops, like thread in a tapestry pattern,” the shortest one says, her elegant fingers miming a complicated weaving motion.

What they were saying makes no sense. “What are you talking about?”

“The future.”

“The past.”

“Destiny.”

“Free will.”

They all have different answers, and none of them helps her. She is trapped by a man who is forcing her to eat poison, and they do not have the key to her cell. 

The leader smiles, and shakes her head. “We’ll come to you once more, on the night you need us most. Traveling along the thread of despair is tiring, even for us.”

“By then you should have chosen what to do,” says the tallest.

“I think she already has,” the shortest adds.

The women begin to fade, calling farewells to her and Erryl. It’s a gradual disappearance, as their shapes melt into glowing dust, and the dust fades into darkness.

Eryka moves back to her daughter, and starts to think seriously of the future. Her situation is worse than she thought.

She thinks of the most important message they revealed: there will be an end to this. She will not forever be caught here, a poor, helpless thing frozen in winterrock. 

Now that they are gone, she finds that although she has no appetite, she is hungry. She looks down at her waist, and wonders how long the pregnancy weight can sustain her. Picking up Erryl, she holds the child to her chest, savoring the reassuring warmth against her skin.

The maidens claimed she has a choice, but Eryka only sees one. She can capitulate, or she will die. Escape is not possible. The bars on her window are too close together for a grown woman to fit through, and it is a long, long way to the ground.

But the maidens do not seem to approve of the Nameless Man, so surely they wouldn’t be encouraging Eryka to give into him.

There has to be another option.

She can disguise herself as her maid, as they do in the tales that the bards sing. She can switch positions with the maid by swapping clothes and escape. She immediately dismisses the idea, because she cannot take Erryl with her, and Eryka will not leave her loyal maid behind to such a grim fate as the Nameless One would deal once Eryka’s disappearance is discovered.

She could accept and pretend to go along, hoping to ease him into a sense of security. While ruling Isternes in her sister’s stead, she has learned much of the horror that comes of the secret strength of a desperate woman. She knows that she could slip a dagger into his heart as she lay beside him on their wedding night.

That path, too, holds too much danger for her to accept. Eryka has traveled the world, and watched as the evil of the darkangels have cast over the lands. She has been to Bern and Zambul, two countries whose lons have gone missing. Eryka believes they have fallen to the icari that moved in to fill the voids left by the absent lons, and she knows Pirsalon has vanished.

She is not naïve enough to believe he will return.

Pirs is in danger, and she cannot protect her husband’s people following the overthrow of the current, acting lord. She is a stranger, and she knows her children will be taken from her by ambitious men. There is no hope if Erryl falls under their sway. Eryka needs to find allies if there is any way to save Pirs, and the only way she can do that is by taking her daughter, the rightful heir, away from this place.

Death is the more tempting of the two options she sees. 

Wistfully, Eryka stares at the windows, whose bars are far too tight to allow her through. Erryl is still small, and she could push the babe out if needs must, but there is nothing below to catch her daughter except the hard ground. Eryka wishes she could fly away from this place, but she has no wings to carry her.

Soon, she will be thin and desperate, and she fears that she will agree to the Nameless One once she loses her will.

The maidens claimed that being thin wasn’t always a bad thing.

Slowly, a third option emerges from her mind, and she finds her hope begin to strengthen. The bars on the window are thin, but Erryl could fit, if only there was a way to bear her down safely.

Eryka will turn her captor’s scheming against him. If she eats hungerspice, she will grow thin. She will make herself thin enough to pass through the bars that imprison her.

So Eryka eats sparingly, just enough to keep her milk flowing and Erryl fed. The more slowly she consumes the hungerspice, the longer her will remains her own. Time starts to blur for her, but she clings to three facts: she will not marry the Nameless One, she will protect her child, and one day, she will be free.

She shreds the silk bodice of her nightgown, and destroys the two kirtles in her wardrobe that are made of the material. Slowly, she begins to weave a rope to lower herself to the ground once she is thin enough, but it is a long way down. She takes her silk underthings and adds the fabric to the mix, but it is still not long enough to reach to the ground.

And there is no more silk in her room, and the other fabrics are not strong enough to use. 

She asks her maid to bring her whatever silk she can find, making sure that no one notices the minor thefts. The good woman does the best she can, but there is little silk that is not coveted by others. The maid takes to hemming clothes up and stealing scraps, but there is little silk that can be spared.

Eryka grows hungry, her stomach complaining whenever she thinks about it. Her milk is still flowing for Erryl, and the maid begins to bring in thin cereals to help supplement the girl’s diet. 

Every day, Eryka goes to the window and judges herself still too large to fit through. She is getting smaller, but the lack of food and the hungerspice in what she does eat make her dizzy and it becomes harder and harder to think clearly.

She loses track of time, but notices that Erryl is growing large, and soon she will be too big to fit through the bars. 

But as Eryka has lost weight, she has lost strength. Her maid brings Erryl to her to nurse, because her own arms aren’t strong enough to carry her most precious child. She sleeps most of the day away, too tired to stir from her bed. She barely can manage to walk across the breadth of the room.

But the rope is finished, and she will have to make a decision soon. 

“Soon” becomes now, because her milk dries up. Whiles Erryl suckles and suckles futilely, Eryka examines the bars before taking stock of her own figure.

_Maybe._

The Nameless One comes to her as the Solstar sets, and his greedy eyes have moved beyond lust into contemptuous satisfaction. He asks her, as always, if she will wed him, and as always, she refuses. A smirk twists his lips, and Eryka knows he is simply waiting for her to die. If there is no mark upon her body from violence, he will be able to announce her death was from natural causes.

Instead of retiring to her bed, she remains seated by the window, her daughter to one side and the silk rope coiled in her lap. She knows the maidens will come tonight.

Instead of the group of thirteen, only three arrive upon the thin thread of Eryka’s hope. She is not surprised to recognize the leader, the tallest, and the shortest.

All three smile at her before coming to greet Erryl. They have always been fond of the child, and Eryka wonders if this is their goodbye. After kissing the girl on the forehead, leaving golden shimmers of star-stuff in their wake, they turn to Eryka.

“Have you decided what you will do?” asks the tallest.

“Escape, one way or another,” Eryka replies. “And then I will call my people to me, and we will leave Pirs. My sister will shelter us in Isternes until we have the strength to overthrow the icari.”

“Hope can be a strong threat,” the leader says, agreeing. “But it’s a dangerous path you tread.”

“Even death would be better than living in fear,” Eryka replies.

The three maidens exchange knowing looks. “There is life beyond death, for we all have souls,” says the leader.

“Most beings do.”

“The ones worth preserving.”

“Our mortal flesh is simply mortal, but the soul lives forever,” the leader concludes. “But your frame is mortal, and you are too weak to carry your daughter through.”

Eryka has been trying to deny that. If she carries Erryl, she will undoubtedly fall, dashing them both against the ground in death. The Nameless One will win.

“But there is always hope,” the shortest insists. “There are stories about your daughter, stories which can come true if you dare to believe.”

They hum the rhythm to a rime that they have sung to her often. Eryka listens as they sing three verses through, and is the first person in living memory to understand.

 _A Princess Royal_ ….

Her daughter. Erryl will be _special._

“What do I do for her?” she asks them, realizing that their offer of companionship has all been leading up until this moment.

The golden woman leans over, and breathes a name – a _spell_ \- into her ears.

Then the maidens fade away, and Eryka is left to her own thoughts.

Eryka waits, considering her options. Then rises to her feet with what little strength she has.

“Wand-given-Wings, come to me!” she calls out, speaking softly. A spell does not have to be loud to be powerful.

She feels the magic in the words, for all that she is no sorceress. She knows that someone will answer, although she wonders what form the answer will take. She cannot survive much longer, but she has yet to give up hope.

She waits, wondering if the spell will work this night or if she will have to continue to resist.

Collapsing back into her chair, she looks at her daughter. She prays that this will work, that they will meet again in Isternes, but the rime made no mention of a mother. Eryka’s heart hurts as she begins to fear she will have to leave her second child motherless as well.

The hour inches by, and she keeps an eye on the sky, waiting for Oceania to rise in the dark sky. Then, a glimpse of movement in the dark catches her attention, and she wonders if she has inadvertently called something horrible instead of help.

A large, white bird swoops downwards, before alighting on the outer window, just beyond the bars that have kept her imprisoned.

“Why do you summon me?” the white bird, a heron, asks in a human voice.

Eryka is not surprised, but for a moment she wonders what she should ask of the bird. For the heron to send her sister’s army across the dangerous land? For the bird to hold the rope to help with their descent? For her to bring Pirsalon back and to Eryka’s aid?

This is the moment of Eryka’s final decision, and the bird will not wait for long.

“How much can you carry?”

“I can bear the weight of the world, if needs must.” The bird shows her large wingspan. “I was made to carry messages, but I have a time or two carried other burdens.”

Eryka glances down at her daughter, the one thing she has managed to protect even though this dark time, and makes her choice.

“Take my Erryl far from here, to the safety of my sister in Isternes,” she told Wand Given Wings. “She is the lady there.”

“I will take her, fair queen,” the bird replies solemnly. 

She is not sure if there is enough rope to lower herself to the ground, but the heron cannot carry Erryl in her claws alone. Using some of the threads of silk she can ill-spare from her rope, Eryka creates a makeshift harness for the heron to grasp. 

“I’ll see she is delivered where she needs to go,” the bird promises, and then takes the babe.

Eryka watches until the white bird has moved beyond the sky’s horizon. Then she looks down at the distant ground, and ties the rope she has created for her own escape to the iron bars of her window.

The cord is too thin; it will not hold her weight. She doesn’t even hesitate, tossing it out the window. 

No matter the cost, Eryka will be free.


End file.
